Ten Fiends' Precious Techniques

Shi Lin entered his spiritual sea of consciousness.

Before his eyes stretched an ocean of blue-black. Shi Lin floated on its "surface," with a silver rune scripture and a segment of golden runes before him.

"This golden rune should be the second chapter of the Indestructible Scripture."

"But what's this silver scripture? Let me take a look!"

Shi Lin picked up the scripture and studied it.

"What? This is the Qilin Precious Technique, belonging to the Qilin, one of the ancient Ten Fiends."

"The complete inheritance of the Qilin, one of the Ten Fiends—a supreme technique that ranks among the very best. It's also one of Six-Crown King Ning Chuan's innate techniques, usually manifested as a divine mark on his forehead. It was once mistaken for a dragon mark, and appeared when he fought Shi Hao, who had charged into the divine king tribulation to seize its tribulation liquid. When unleashed, its punches surge with terrifying power. A White Qilin appears, roaring as the technique is cast, its bearing that of a king and its aura unmatched beneath the heavens." Shi Lin murmured to himself.

"The Qilin Precious Technique: one of the ten secret arts created by a supreme being who stood alone through the ages. It contains four supreme skills: Qilin Step, Qilin Fist, Qilin Foot, and Qilin Mark. Unleashing all four can summon the phantom of a Qilin!"

"I struck it rich! I struck it rich!" Shi Lin was so excited he could barely contain himself. Anyone would have reacted the same way.

Shi Lin calmed himself, memorized the text in the scripture, and put it away. Then he looked at the segment of golden runes.

"Sure enough, it's the second chapter of the Indestructible Scripture!"

These runes resembled the first chapter of the Indestructible Scripture in many ways, but were even more profound and intricate.

Shi Lin nodded and committed them to memory.

Shi Lin opened his eyes and left his spiritual sea of consciousness.

"I've gained so much this time. I need to practice properly." Shi Lin murmured to himself, then began to meditate.

He didn't let the discovery go to his head. He knew he still wasn't strong enough.

Several hundred miles from Stone Village, the party from Stone Village had reached this place while out hunting.

"Where are we? We must be six or seven hundred miles from the village by now. Huh, there's smoke rising beyond that mountain." Er Meng pointed ahead.

Huzi rolled his eyes. "Would the smoke from your house be that thick, rising that high? We can see it even from beyond a mountain. There's a fire. Come on, let's go take a look."

A dozen Unicorns surged up the mountain ahead like a silver whirlwind. Peering through the branches of ancient trees, they looked down—and were immediately stunned.

It was a village, perhaps with more than two hundred households, but every house was burning. Flames shot into the sky, and thick black smoke billowed upward.

There were no cries for help from the village. Apart from the blazing fire and thick smoke, all was deathly silent.

"Look!" Da Zhuang pointed into the distance.

On the horizon, an enormous figure was moving away. There were also several people riding ferocious beasts, retreating with bloody blades in their hands. Even from this far away, they could feel the murderous aura surrounding them.

"Who are those people? Did they destroy this village?" Da Zhuang and the others were stunned, a chill creeping over them.

Little One said nothing, keeping his eyes fixed on the huge figure. It was a ferocious beast, runes flickering across its body, surrounded by a group of people who treated it with great reverence. He thought it looked very much like a Sacrificial Spirit.

Only after the beast and the group of people disappeared did the children exchange glances.

"Let's go down and take a look."

Riding their Unicorns, they charged down the slope. As soon as they neared the village, a pungent stench of blood hit them. They walked forward, and what they saw was too horrible to bear.

One corpse after another lay in pools of blood. There were white-haired old men whose heads had been cut off and tossed by the roadside, and infants in swaddling clothes who had been slaughtered alongside their mothers.

"How vicious! They didn't even spare the old or the children!"

The sight chilled the children to the bone and filled them with fury. How could people be so inhuman? Why cruelly slaughter women and children, the elderly and the weak, those who couldn't fight back?

Some of the children's eyes reddened, and they couldn't hold back their tears.

"What kind of people would do something like this?"

The fire raged, consuming every building. A fierce resistance had taken place in the eastern part of the village. A group of grown men had fought back, but they had all been dismembered, dying horrific deaths. Their weapons had been broken as well.

"Ah! This is the village's Sacrificial Spirit. It's been killed!" one child cried.

In the center of the village stood an altar. Beside it lay a huge beast, shaped like a lion but with eight legs and a pair of black horns on its head. It was covered in blood, and half its body had been devoured. The Primitive Treasure Bone inside it was gone, too.

"The beast that just left ate half its body." The children shuddered. A Sacrificial Spirit had actually become food.

Flames soared through the village, and even the streets were scorching hot. The Unicorns could barely stand the heat and didn't want to stay.

Suddenly, a faint groan reached them. An old man with white hair lay there, his belly split open, blood and intestines strewn across the ground. Somehow, he was still alive.

"Grandpa!"

The children jumped off their Unicorns and hurriedly crouched beside him to examine his injuries. Their hearts sank. There was no way he could survive wounds this severe.

"I hate them! Those people were too cruel... They didn't even spare babies just a few months old. They slaughtered everyone in our village." The old man wept bitterly.

Not far away, several children had been slammed to the ground and killed. The sight was unbearable, their deaths so vicious it made one's hair stand on end.

"Who are they? Why would they do this?" Huzi asked.

"A band of brutal raiders appeared out of nowhere. They came once before and demanded black gold from us. The deadline came, and we couldn't pay, so they massacred the village. Even our Sacrificial Spirit died fighting them." The old man spoke through his tears. His white hair was matted with blood and tears. At his advanced age, the sight filled them with sorrow and anger.

"Wuwu, I hate them..." The old man rallied for one last moment. After saying this, he was gone. Tears mingled with blood and trickled down his face, and then he lay motionless.

At last, the children left. When they looked back, the flames were dying down, and the entire village had become a charred ruin.

Heavy-hearted, they had no desire to hunt anymore. They rode their Unicorns swiftly back to Stone Village and told the adults what had happened.

"Could it be them... The crisis has come." The clan chief coughed, one hand pressed to his chest. He thought of what had happened all those years ago, when a group of brothers had gone out to make their way in the world, only for him to be the sole survivor to escape back.

"Grandpa Chief, who are they? What do they want?" Little One asked.

"A fearsome group. They came in search of... a Supreme Deity's hidden treasure." The old man sighed, worry etched across his face as he gazed toward the distant land.

There was a legend about this land. Once, a peerless Supreme had left behind an inheritance here, buried in an ancient cave dwelling that contained records of his Dao. Countless people throughout the ages had come searching for it, all returning empty-handed. But one day, thunder crashed down from the Ninth Heaven, shattering a mountain range and revealing a corner of the cave dwelling.

"We were both lucky and unlucky." The clan chief, Shi Yunfeng, had sorrow and the weight of time in his eyes. His good brothers from those days were all dead, and he alone had survived. His heart was filled with endless pain.

"We joined a sect and cultivated Bone Text together. Among the youths who came from a village, my aptitude was fairly good. I reached the Cave Heaven Realm. When the thunderbolts descended from the Ninth Heaven, I happened to be out on a trial with a group of brothers. That's when we found the cave dwelling."

That was where their troubles began. They unearthed many Bone Scriptures, but couldn't open the cave dwelling's true entrance or enter its core.

Word got out, and they faced endless pursuit. Forces from every direction joined in, all trying to seize those Bone Scriptures.

"They didn't know that these Bone Scriptures, though precious, weren't the true inheritance of the cave dwelling. As they chased us, we fled deep into the Great Wilderness, with no path to heaven and no door to earth."

Shi Yunfeng spoke bitterly. His good brothers died one after another. After enduring countless hardships, only he and one other managed to escape alive.

Later, they returned to search for the ruins, only to discover that "the stars had shifted"—as if ten thousand years had passed. Nothing remained.

"It must have been the mysterious power of the Bone Text. It caused that hidden treasure to sink beneath the earth and drift away. No one knows where it is now." The clan chief sighed.

Even so, they were later subjected to endless pursuit. A band of brutal raiders appeared, incomparably powerful, with a Sacrificial Spirit accompanying them. Their long escape began.

"Later, a lot happened. It was many years before we finally escaped them, and returned to Stone Village wounded."

In the end, he was the only one who survived. The other man died not long after returning to the village.

The clan chief didn't go into the details of the past, but there had surely been many hidden truths and many more stories. He was no ordinary man to have evaded those people's pursuit for so many years.

It was a pity. Shi Yunfeng had once possessed extraordinary talent, but his cultivation had been interrupted, and he'd suffered grave injuries. His cultivation had never advanced since, and his physical condition had steadily worsened.

"We were attacked by a strange mist outside that cave dwelling and injured. Then we were hunted down, making those strange injuries worse. That's why, all these years, we haven't been able to use the secret power of the Bone Text freely."

Shi Yunfeng spoke simply, but one could imagine how much danger he had faced back then. He glossed over it in just a few words and didn't elaborate.

"The most powerful force back then had dozens of bands of brutal raiders under its command, tasked with searching for that Supreme treasure trove. I feel they've appeared again. They never gave up searching."

Everyone was astonished. This was the first time the clan chief had revealed his feelings to them and spoken of the secrets of those years. Though he kept it brief and didn't go into detail, they could sense the tension and the terrifying slaughter of the past.

Many powerful forces had been involved. Back then, they must have stirred up a storm that reached the heavens.

"I think that Supreme's land should still be somewhere in this region. Even if it sank underground and drifted away, it shouldn't be far."

An area stretching one hundred thousand li in every direction had once been ravaged by four great living beings. Now not a blade of grass grew there, and not a trace of life remained. Searching deep within would surely be incredibly difficult.

But the raiders had appeared again, which meant they might have made a new discovery. This place would no longer be peaceful.

"Prepare for the worst!" Shi Yunfeng ordered. The Willow Deity was dormant. If the raiders found them, they would have to rely on themselves.

"It's a pity Aunt Green-Scaled Eagle took Ziyun, Dapeng, and Xiao Qing with her to train and cultivate. We don't know where they are now. Otherwise, they'd be a powerful force in battle." Little One lamented.

The situation was even more dire than they had expected. Several days later, Pi Hou, Huzi, and the others brought back bad news. They had ridden their Unicorns out to investigate and discovered another village, six hundred miles away, that had been completely massacred.

"We found a survivor, but he only lived for half an hour before dying. He said those people only demanded Primitive Treasure Bones and precious rare metals. They didn't ask them anything about the mountains or the land."

The children reported what they had learned. The clan chief frowned when he heard them and muttered, "Could I have been wrong? Could they be a different band of raiders from the ones back then? But that group also plundered black gold."

Half a month later, dust billowed along the horizon. A group of people riding ferocious beasts appeared and raced toward Stone Village.

"Not good! Prepare for battle!"

The villagers were frantic. Shi Linhu, Shi Feijiao, and the others all held Dragonhorn Bows, aiming them at the distance as they stood watch at the entrance to the village. They were prepared to defend their home to the death.